Tech: The Tesla Holiday Update

One of the best parts about owning a Tesla is that you receive free over-the-air software updates for the vehicle all the time. Most of these updates are minor (bug fixes, UI tweaks), but every so often major features get added, like rear cross-traffic alerts and adaptive headlights.  Tesla usually saves up the biggest changes for the annual holiday update:

This year, the headline feature for the holiday update is the integration of the car's navigation system with Grok, the chatbot of Elon Musk's company xAI.  Practically speaking, that means you can give natural language directions to your car ("Navigate to the nearest Walmart, then go to the McDonald's on Belvedere Road") and the system will plot your course automatically.  If you add in Tesla's recently updated "Full Self Driving (Supervised)" system to the mix, you can theoretically drive all over the place, including backing in and out of parking spaces, without ever touching the steering wheel - theoretically.

In addition to the practical updates, there are always some gimmicks and fun stuff added, like new video games (this year, it's a SpaceX docking simulator straight out of Interstellar) and an updated "Santa Mode" which replaces the vehicle visualization in the display screen with a Tesla-ized sleigh. It's nothing earth-shattering, but it's better support than you get from most other carmakers.